Canada Part 1

The kids were thrilled to be called out of school an hour early. We were at the airport an hour later. I was busy reading a really good book and the kids had been happily singing with the ipod. So no one was in their travel clothes.

No problem, that's what drivers are for - to wait while they get changed in the toilets.

Our flight took off on time - 5pm. Big wide world here we come.

Friday 12th December - 7pm. Land in Singapore. The land of many rules. 5 in a taxi - off to our favorite hotel - The Perak Hotel. This hotel is nothing to look at. It's in Little India. BUT, we have the family suite (a rarity for 5 people in Singapore). It is the attic of half of the hotel. It is a long L shape and has three seperate areas (including a kitchen). Breakfast is basic - but provided. It is HUGELY expensive - BUT - we HATE seperate rooms that are not adjoining (means no sleep for anyone) - so we suck it up princess.

Sat morning - the excitement was mounting. We took off at 9:30am. Landed in Korea many hours later (I don't remember - I just know it was about 6 hours - don't remember if they were behind or ahead). We stayed for 1 hour - during which we had to buy food for the kids (for some reason Singapore Airlines only served asian food as kids meals - well derrr, you may say, but they have western food for adults. So they ate - nothing.

Anyway - back on the plane for a 9 1/2 hour flight from Seoul to Vancouver. Kids slept for a lot of this. We slept for some of it. It didn't seem too bad.

We landed at 11:30am Sat morning (a whole 2 hours after we left - work that out (15 hours time difference, 17 hour travel time)).

We hung around for an hour - then boarded the bus for Whistler. We alternated between sitting up and looking out the window - then falling back asleep (hey, look at that, we went from city to sea within a blink of an eye, hey look at that.....snoore).

Arrived in Whistler at 4pm 13th Dec.

Jason went inside with the kids - I caught a taxi to the supermarket to stock up (oh the joy of jet lag, but I was in a real supermarket - without bans on imports).

At 1am, we were all wide awake. We had french toast and pancakes. At 3 we were asleep again. Waking up at 11:30 on your birthday (mine) is not what I recommend. But, unfortunately I was not ALLOWED to celebrate my birthday when Aus was in time zone (event though that was where I was born), I had to celebrate when Canada was. Well, I missed half of it sleeping. Yes, someone was bitter (and I'll give you a clue - it wasn't the kids).

We went out for a lovely lunch and wandered around the village. We went out for an even lovelier dinner - but forgot to take a photo because we were all exhausted. But we did organise our ski boots and skis for the mornings skiing.

The holiday was about to begin.